Pakistan bans Jamaat-ud-Dawa

ISLAMABAD: In a move that appears to be aimed at curbing militancy and extremism in the country, Pakistan has decided to ban 12 organizations, including Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD), the frontrunner of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, a welfare wing of the JuD, and the Haqqani Network.

The decision came a day after the US State Department declared Mullah Fazlullah, the chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist'. Fazlullah, nicknamed Mullah Radio, had accepted responsibility for the last month attack on school in Peshawar, which left 142 children dead.

The carnage at school prompted Pakistani leadership review its security policy besides swiftly taking stringent measures, including lifting of moratorium on death penalty and establishment of military courts, to counter the scourge of terrorism.

"It's our first step towards execution of the National Action Plan. The nation will see more positive steps towards dismantling militant groups. Both civilian and military leadership decided to ban the Haqqani Network and JuD," The Express Tribune quoted a senior intelligence official as saying.

While JuD continues to operate openly in Pakistan, and its leader, Hafiz Saeed, holds public rallies and often gives TV interviews, the Haqqani Network, a yesteryear friend of Pakistan's spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), was using the tribal region of North Waziristan as its springboard.

The US State Department had last year named the JuD as a "foreign terrorist organisation", while India blames its leader Hafiz Saeed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Asif Khursheed, JuD Islamabad's spokesperson, revealed that last week the "home department sent us a letter informing us that the Jamaat is being kept on the watch-list with some two dozen other organisations".

"Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a purely welfare and charity organisation and has never been involved in bad motives. Even, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has justified our stance in the past," he told media.

According to Amir Rana, the executive director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, the banning of an organisation means freezing its assets, blocking its funding sources and proper monitoring of its activities. "In the next move, the offices, infrastructures and networks of the proscribed groups will be banned," he reportedly said.

Pakistan had banned 12 organisations days before US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Pakistan this week. With this latest addition of 12 more outfits, they the number of proscribed organizations in Pakistan has reached 72.

Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, the organisation accused of conducting terrorist attacks in Pakistan and India is also among the newly banned groups. Its operational commander, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan in 2011.

The list also features Harkat-ul-Mujahidin, the group accused of operating in Kashmir, and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, a welfare wing of the JuD.

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So US commands and the slave-state jumps again, though is it really going to make any difference?

IN the long, convoluted history of the Pakistani state banning militant groups, the present episode may be the most mysterious: a US government spokesperson has publicly and explicitly welcomed a decision by Pakistan to ban several more militant groups, even though absolutely no one in government here has made any such announcement.

If US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harfâ€™s assertion in a news briefing on Friday proves true â€” â€œWe welcome [the decision] to outlaw the Haqqani network, Jamaatud Dawa, and I think about 10 other organisations linked to violent extremism,â€ Ms Harf is quoted as saying â€” it would demonstrate that the bad old days of Pakistani leaders treating external powers as more relevant and important in matters of national security than, say, the Pakistani public or parliament have never really gone away.

Even more problematically, the latest move â€” if, indeed, it is announced soon, as Ms Harf has claimed it will be â€” would bolster the perception that Pakistan is fighting militancy at the behest of others, especially the US, and not because this is a war that this country must fight and win for its own survival.

There is no doubt that the Pakistani state needs to do more against a much wider spectrum of militant and extremist groups operating its soil.

Focusing on simply the so-called anti-Pakistan militant networks such as the TTP will only produce medium-term results, perhaps, but guarantees long-term failure in the fight against militancy. This is both because of the overlapping nature of militant groups â€” operational, strategic and ideological â€” and because a long-term future where the state is in competition with militias for predominance inside Pakistan is not a future that ought to be acceptable to anyone in this country.

So yes, the Haqqani network needs to be banned as does the Jamaatud Dawa and sundry more names that may come to light soon. But without a zero-tolerance policy against militancy, there will be no winning strategy.

Zero tolerance certainly does not mean simply military operations and heavy-handed counterterrorism measures in the urban areas; what it does suggest is a commitment to progressively disarm and dismantle militant groups and the wider extremist network that enables those groups to survive and thrive.

Of course, simply banning more groups will not mean much unless the previous bans are implemented, the new bans cover all incarnations of a militant group, and there are sustained efforts by the law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus to ensure banned organisations do not quietly regroup once the initial focus fades. That has never happened before.

And the present is even more complicated. What will a ban on the Haqqani network mean in practice given that the major sanctuary in North Waziristan has already been disrupted by Operation Zarb-e-Azb? What will banning the JuD mean for the Falahi Insaniyat Foundation? Will the government offer answers â€” to anything?

The usual tactic of obfuscation and red herrings... ban has no meaning when any organisation can change the name and continue to work. A ban in Pakistan does not mean a crackdown on the people and the organisation, seizing of its assets and jailing its operatives. So makes no difference. This will be just lip service just to show the US so that they can get the next installment of the aid money. As soon as the money is released, the JUD will be back.

Islamabad: The Jamat ud- Dawa headed by 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, whose assets have reportedly been frozen by Pakistan, held a rally in Pakistan's Karachi this afternoon. Pakistan's action came following US pressure ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to India. "Pakistan, as a member of the United Nations is under obligations to proscribe the entities and individuals that are listed. We take our obligations very seriously," Tasnim Aslam, spokesperson of Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement today. "Once any individuals and organizations are proscribed by the UN, we are required to freeze their assets and enforce travel restrictions. We take that action." Last week, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Pakistan was not "mending its ways". Saeed, who has a $10 million bounty on his head, gets a free run in Pakistan, holding public rallies and giving interviews in which he rails against India. In December, he blamed India for the Taliban terror attack on a school in Peshawar and vowed revenge. The address to his followers had been aired by Pakistan's national television.In 2008, the United Nations said the JuD is a front for the terror group Lashkar- e-Taiba, which planned and executed the attack in Mumbai, which left 166 people dead. The US State Department declared the JUD a "foreign terrorist organisation" last year. The Lashkar founder claims he has long abandoned its leadership and now heads JuD, which is involved in humanitarian and charity work.Pakistan Says Action Taken. JuD Chief Hafiz Saeed Still Holds Rally